I don't support the MP, or his greediness, but, this was an insult to all of Orthodoxy, not just the MP.

Shameful, yes.

Punishable by seven years in prison, though?

Seven years? No. That's too strict.

However, it shouldn't be simply dismissed.

Perhaps these "mothers" would benefit from some counciling, religious education or community service.

And that's what the people behind the petition featured in the OP believe, too. I have a very soft spot for all kinds of civil disobedience (provided there's an actual cause, even if I disagree with it), but even I think this one goes a bit too far, but that's also because I have a very strong sense of the sacred.

The reaction by the authorities, both secular and religious, is over the top, IMHO.

Madonna Ciccone is respectable? She is an aged whore of Babylon.All decent people despise her in our society.

Quote

UH OH. THE ILLUMINATI WITH THEIR HOMO-FASCIST-LUCIFERIAN-ANTI CHRISTIAN AGENDA IS OUT DESTROY US. BOOOOOOOOOOO.

It is the Cold War. No Illuminati.

I said fairly. I respect her record of pissing off the uptight folk. She's got quite an impressive resume in that field, but as far as musicianship and talent? Not a chance. Actually, i don't "like" anyone on that list you mentioned, yet none of the people i consider to be REAL dangers to human decency appeared. So i ain't trippin, yo'.

Pussy Riot forgiven by Russian Orthodox ChurchTikhon Shevkunov, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery and is widely believed to be the Russian president's spiritual counselor, said on state television Saturday that his church forgave the singers right after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"The church has been sometimes accused of not forgiving them," the bearded and bespectacled cleric said. "We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities."

Pussy Riot forgiven by Russian Orthodox ChurchTikhon Shevkunov, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery and is widely believed to be the Russian president's spiritual counselor, said on state television Saturday that his church forgave the singers right after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"The church has been sometimes accused of not forgiving them," the bearded and bespectacled cleric said. "We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities."

Pussy Riot forgiven by Russian Orthodox ChurchTikhon Shevkunov, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery and is widely believed to be the Russian president's spiritual counselor, said on state television Saturday that his church forgave the singers right after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"The church has been sometimes accused of not forgiving them," the bearded and bespectacled cleric said. "We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities."

Pussy Riot forgiven by Russian Orthodox ChurchTikhon Shevkunov, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery and is widely believed to be the Russian president's spiritual counselor, said on state television Saturday that his church forgave the singers right after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"The church has been sometimes accused of not forgiving them," the bearded and bespectacled cleric said. "We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities."

Pussy Riot forgiven by Russian Orthodox ChurchTikhon Shevkunov, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery and is widely believed to be the Russian president's spiritual counselor, said on state television Saturday that his church forgave the singers right after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"The church has been sometimes accused of not forgiving them," the bearded and bespectacled cleric said. "We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities."

People just want to be angry regardless of the facts.

I lost my Kerdy de-coder ring. Can you translate that for me?

Logged

"The Scots-Irish; Brewed in Scotland, bottled in Ireland, uncorked in America." ~Scots-Irish saying

Pussy Riot forgiven by Russian Orthodox ChurchTikhon Shevkunov, who heads Moscow's Sretensky Monastery and is widely believed to be the Russian president's spiritual counselor, said on state television Saturday that his church forgave the singers right after their "punk prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February.

"The church has been sometimes accused of not forgiving them," the bearded and bespectacled cleric said. "We did forgive them from the very start. But such actions should be cut short by society and authorities."

People just want to be angry regardless of the facts.

I lost my Kerdy de-coder ring. Can you translate that for me?

No code needed.

Some people simply want to be angry and will remain angry no matter what, even if they are shown to be incorrect. For instance, angry with the actions of the Church, even though there is nothing to be angry over, i.e., not asking for compassion during sentencing even though they did.

These attention seeker ugly little brats have succeeded in getting what they've wanted: attention. I saw and heard their rants from the cathedral, and they look and sound like devil. The "activist" boyfreind of one of these evil women tries hard to speak with the British accent. Even the name of the gang band is English. How shameful it must be for Russians to immitate the junk culture of the West! Please someone teach them a good lesson they won't ever forget. How about sending them to North Pole?

These attention seeker ugly little brats have succeeded in getting what they've wanted: attention. I saw and heard their rants from the cathedral, and they look and sound like devil. The "activist" boyfreind of one of these evil women tries hard to speak with the British accent. Even the name of the gang band is English. How shameful it must be for Russians to immitate the junk culture of the West! Please someone teach them a good lesson they won't ever forget. How about sending them to North Pole?

Islam is the evil religion of intolerance and hatred. English is trendy. A lot of things all over the world are in English. Realistically if you want to communicate with anybody from outside the CIS, you had better learn English.

Nice try, but wrong. From what I could tell about the author from searching around, he doesn't speak Russian nor has he lived in the CIS. So the idea that he somehow has some secret insight that the "Western media" (of which he is presumably a part) missed is silly.

The fact of the matter is that the ladies in question claim they are Orthodox Christians. Unless you can produce an official excommunication to call them unorthodox is libel. They were protesting the relationship between Edinaya Rossiya and the Orthodox Church, wishing for the Church to not be co-opted by the Kremlin. This is a completely different scenario than a group of non-Orthodox people protesting the existence of Orthodoxy from within an Orthodox Cathedral. The other idea that was simply laughable in the linked article is that Russia is somehow a religious society. Pretty much every study I've seen puts active church attendance in the 1-3% range. To call Pussy Riot Soviet is also illogical - the two main people that protested against, Putin and Patr. Gundyaev who were themselves cogs in the Soviet system and who repeatedly use neo-Soviet imagery in their speeches.

The problem that Pussy Riot and Femen have are their methods. All normal methods of civil society are broken in the CIS, so people tend towards extremism.

Let us please remember one important difference: Femen sees religion as an obstacle to women's equality. Pussy Riot on the other hand consider themselves Orthodox Christians, they just don't recognise the MP's leadership as the only authority to interpret Orthodox tradition.

A couple of decades ago, the West exported communism and Vodka to destroy Orthodox Christian souls in Russia, now it's attempting with music and sexual virusus. The android woman who calls herself madonna actively engaged in promoting homosexuality ain't a coincidence. The war against Orthodox souls continues.

Oh please. Can we stop with the anti-Western rhetoric already? Moscow is just as much if not more of a moral cesspool than any Western city. Heck, the same can be said about a provincial city like Irkutsk--and please don't tell me the junkies passed out left and right on the streets are America's fault. And if you think the "West" alone was capable of ideologically colonizing "Holy Russia," then you have a very low opinion of Russians, methinks. Deal with it--Russia as a whole was never as holy as you imagine it to have been.

Žižek is an atheist. He has said he does not consider religion an enemy but rather one of the fields of struggle. He has also referred to himself as a "Christian materialist". Žižek believes the universalist aspect of Christianity should be secularized into militant egalitarianism, against the "pagan notion of destiny". This universalism he derives from what he perceives as the alleged Christian death of God: God died on the cross and lives on as the "Holy Spirit", that is, in human community. ... He has written many pieces on the reinterpretation of the religious and the theological such as The Puppet and the Dwarf, On Belief and The Fragile Absolute.

You are not worthy to be a mod, since you are troll not a man of honour.

And you, sir, are in no position to make such personal attacks on one of our posters, be he a moderator or not. You are therefore receiving this warning to last for the next 60 days. If you wish to appeal this warning, please send me a private message.

Oh please. Can we stop with the anti-Western rhetoric already? Moscow is just as much if not more of a moral cesspool than any Western city. Heck, the same can be said about a provincial city like Irkutsk--and please don't tell me the junkies passed out left and right on the streets are America's fault. And if you think the "West" alone was capable of ideologically colonizing "Holy Russia," then you have a very low opinion of Russians, methinks. Deal with it--Russia as a whole was never as holy as you imagine it to have been.

You raise an important question, unfortunately I cannot answer in detail now, since I am still on the way back from Ukraine. However, I would want us to be careful. Just because Zizek and Foucault have expressed support for Pussy Riot, does not mean that Pussy Riot share their ideologies.

I would suggest we make statements about doctrines and views of Pussy Riot only on the base of their own statements, not on who has expressed support for them during the trial.

Oy. Sad day when I have to respond to something from the Guardian. I fail to see your point or, frankly, that of the author. The West has many, many problems. Including increasingly incarceration for thought-crimes. I think it is a vile and disturbing trend. There are many who also feel this way, and speak out against it. How is this hypocrisy? Because we have problems we shouldn't have opinions on what goes on elsewhere? Have you been to Russia? Have you seen the blatant materialism and hedonism among the younger set? Oh right--that's all the West's fault. I guess the crass consumerism increasingly exhibited in China is also the West's fault. This is a human condition, a failing, not a geographic location.

You raise an important question, unfortunately I cannot answer in detail now, since I am still on the way back from Ukraine. However, I would want us to be careful. Just because Zizek and Foucault have expressed support for Pussy Riot, does not mean that Pussy Riot share their ideologies.

Foucalt dies in 1984. I somehow doubt he has feelings one way or another.

Oy. Sad day when I have to respond to something from the Guardian. I fail to see your point or, frankly, that of the author. The West has many, many problems. Including increasingly incarceration for thought-crimes. I think it is a vile and disturbing trend. There are many who also feel this way, and speak out against it. How is this hypocrisy? Because we have problems we shouldn't have opinions on what goes on elsewhere? Have you been to Russia? Have you seen the blatant materialism and hedonism among the younger set? Oh right--that's all the West's fault. I guess the crass consumerism increasingly exhibited in China is also the West's fault. This is a human condition, a failing, not a geographic location.

What the punkers did was shocking, blasphemous and - frankly childish.

How the Russian state reacted was indicative of a far greater danger. Had they been punished as they would have been in the United States or Great Britain, they would not have become a 'cause celebre' around the world, thereby allowing secular humanists and non-believers to 'tut tut' about the Church, State and the all too complex nature of the historical relationship between the two in any western culture. (By western I mean those states who owe some debt to the civilization of the Hellenes and the Romans - not just the Church of Rome.)

Unless of course you secretly yearn for a church state hegemony in which all manners of human conduct and foreign policy are conducted in accordance with a theocratic heavy hand. Oh wait - there is such a modern state - Iran. Is Russia to become the 'orthodox' (intentional use of a small 'o' folks) equivalent?

I suspect Putin and his crew have intentionally hijacked the Church - a Church emerging from the overt persecution by the Soviet State willing to reassert her historic role in the Russian culture and people (but at what cost I might ask?) - in order to restore the oligarchy - wrapped in a velvet glove rather than a naked iron fist.

However, I would want us to be careful. Just because Zizek and Foucault have expressed support for Pussy Riot, does not mean that Pussy Riot share their ideologies.

I am being careful and I did not write my post because Zizek or Foucault supported PR. (Foucault is dead BTW)

The reason is that PR read these authors (especially Zizek) and that their statements seem to reflect the theory and practice of these two revolutionaries.

Pussy Riot/Voina members are not original thinkers, they are young zealous activists, same way as young Bolshevik party members were able to express basic tenets of the doctrine, yet were not capable to develop it on their own or claim authorship.

It is enough to compare Zizek theories with PR statements and actions to see the connection. Same way as you can recognize Marxists by their words and deeds.

Why I think it is important, to resist a revolution or to protect the Church, you need to understand with whom you are dealing. So read a little, please.